My Son, The Cross-Dresser
By Lisen Stromberg Solon Magazine
My son is a cross-dresser. Most mornings he gets up, puts on a hand-me-down
dress stolen from his sister, wraps an old white pillowcase around his head
with a ribbon (his "long blond hair") and prances around singing, "The hills
are alive with the sound of music." My son is 3 and a half years old.
At the toy store, he does not want Batman. "I want a Batgirl doll," he cries.
When he begs to play with his friend Margo, it is not because he likes her
better than his best friends Billy and Andrew; she just has more to offer --
like an extensive collection of Barbie dolls and a whole wardrobe of little
clothes he can dress them in.
He loves preschool -- partly for the teachers, somewhat for the other
children, but mostly for its wonderful selection of tutus, fancy party shoes
and pretend jewelry. His grandmother (my mother) received the shock of her
life when she went to pick him up one day and he was wearing a blue tutu with
beaded gold slippers. The other mothers laugh and tell me he is such a
thespian. The teacher tells my husband and me that he is "highly in touch with
his feminine side."
If we only had to worry about preschool, life would be fine -- but his
grandparents (on both sides), his aunts and uncles, his baby sitter and just
about everybody else are up in arms. "Boys should be playing baseball, not
Barbie," my mother-in-law exclaims. "I was so embarrassed," complains my
mother after the harrowing tutu incident. "He keeps taking my daughter's
Cinderella slippers!" my neighbor told my other neighbor who told me. The
older siblings of his friends have called him an oddball, a weirdo and
generally not normal. Adults tend to be more subtle with questions like: "So
when do you think he will grow out of it?" or "How does your husband feel
about it?"
I have tried to explain to each of them that my son approaches life with a
unique flair. While he loves soccer, he often plays it wearing a silk cape
that flutters in the wind when he runs. Playing with his cars takes on new
dimensions when he acts out both the "damsel in distress" and the "sheriff to
the rescue" role, alternating hats to represent each character. My husband
can't wait for Little League to start because he sees a little slugger in our
son who can already hit the ball out of our relatively large backyard. Our son
also can't wait to play baseball, but for a different reason: He says that
cleats "are just like tap shoes."
Thankfully his preschool teacher has assured us that he is simply "evolved."
"I wish all of my children were as well-balanced as your little boy," she told
us at our first parent-teacher conference. "I love the way he plays cowboys
and Indians wearing his favorite ballet slippers." She credits our
"nonjudgmental and accepting parenting" for his creative expression. Frankly,
I was a little relieved. So he is not a weirdo -- he is "evolved." I wish I
could take credit for this, but it is all of his own creation.
Interestingly, no one seems the least bit disturbed about our friend (I will
call her Gillian). At 5 and a half years old, she refuses to wear dresses,
plays T-ball and soccer and is proving quite skilled at climbing trees. She
has more cuts and bruises as a result of roughhousing with her older brothers
than my husband claims he ever received playing varsity college football.
Gillian, I am told, is a tomboy. "Isn't she cute," a friend exclaimed to me
when we were at Gillian's house for a Sunday barbecue. (My son was inside
watching "Pocahontas" with two girls.) And my son is not cute when he dresses
up and reenacts the glass slipper scene from "Cinderella"?
If Gillian is a tomboy because she likes to do boylike things, what then is my
son who likes to do girl-like things -- a janegirl? As far as I can tell there
is no equivalent in the English language (at least there is not one in my
Webster's Dictionary). More important, there is no acceptable behavioral
equivalent.
I have begun to ask myself what is normal? My son loves trucks, cars and
trains. He plays for hours with his Brio train set while wearing his sister's
striped dress. He is very affectionate and will frequently tell his friends he
loves them with a hug. Last fall, during those terrible twos, he was accused
of being a bully because he bit a girl at the playground. How can a child go
from bully to sissy in a mere nine months?
I am coming to realize that while our sex-role stereotypes have expanded for
girls, they have not for boys; there seems to be no acceptable cross-gender
equivalent. A gay friend of mine claims all of the uproar is a homophobic
response to my son's actions. "I remember loving to dress up and put on
makeup, too," my friend tells me with a knowing glance. He is only 3 and a
half years old, I remind my friend -- a little early to be defining his sexual
preferences.
The feminist revolution appears to have successfully helped foster an
environment that makes it "cool" to be a girl. Much research is being done to
ensure that girls are encouraged to excel in math and science, overcome the
repression of adolescence and, with luck, one day be more than tokens on
boards of directors across the land. I am thrilled. Trust me; I have a 1-year-
old daughter. I want her to understand and respect her power, her opportunity,
her femaleness. But what about my son? I would like him to be able to respect
his power, his opportunity and his maleness even as he explores his feminine
side.
It's not just in my house that the days of "boys will be boys" are over. A few
months ago, the Wall Street Journal ran an article that claimed prescriptions
for Ritalin were at an all-time high and increasingly, boys are expected to be
less rambunctious and more docile (that is, more girl-like). And a guest
commentator on an NPR program about youth violence expressed concern that the
rise in the births of boys would result in a coming "deluge of testosterone-
laden young men" creating havoc in our society. My mind reels: Is the
conclusion that a 3-and-a-half-year-old should be more like a boy but a
12-year-old should be more like a girl?
I have to admit, sometimes I am embarrassed by my son's behavior. His
declaration to my father-in-law that he wants to be a ballet dancer when he
grows up almost created a family feud. When the father of one of his preschool
classmates unintentionally called him a girl (he was wearing the favorite blue
tutu, mind you), I cringed just a little. And I am often confused about the
messages I'm sending him. I don't mind if he wants to wear lipstick to a
birthday party -- "Mom, you wear lipstick when you dress up!" he reminds me --
but how do I protect him from the inevitable taunting that will occur as he
ages?
I come back to my original question: what is normal? Sadly, my husband and I
are learning all too early that the constraints of normality are very narrow
indeed. Happily, my son, who at the moment is pretending to be Belle from
"Beauty and the Beast," adorned with his favorite pearl necklace and earring
ensemble I gave him for his birthday, does not yet know this. With luck and a
little parental intervention, he won't for a very long time.
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